Black Jack

They drifted past the town, quickening to a soft trot after a moment, and then to a faster trot—­El Sangre was gliding along at a steady pace.

“Not back to the house!” said Denver with an oath, when they straightened back to the house of Pollard.  “That’s the first place McGuire will look, after what you said to him the other night.”

“That’s where I want him to look,” answered Terry, “and that’s where he’ll find me.  Pollard will hide the coin and we’ll get one of the boys to take our sweaty horses over the hills.  We can tell McGuire that the two horses have been put out to pasture, if he asks.  But he mustn’t find hot horses in the stable.  Certainly McGuire will strike for the house.  But what will he find?”

He laughed joyously.

Suddenly the voice of Denver cut in softly, insinuatingly.

“You dope it that he’ll cut for the house of Pollard?  So do I. Now, kid, why not go another direction—­and keep on going?  What right have Pollard and the others to cut in on this coin?  You and me, kid, can—­”

“I don’t hear you, Denver,” interrupted Terry.  “I don’t hear you.  We wouldn’t have known where to find the stuff if it hadn’t been for Pollard’s friend Sandy.  They get their share—­but you can have my part, Denver.  I’m not doing this for money; it’s only an object lesson to that fat-headed sheriff.  I’d pay twice this price for the sake of the little talk I’m going to have with him later on tonight.”

“All right—­Black Jack,” muttered Denver.  For it seemed to him that the voice of the lost leader had spoken.  “Play the fool, then, kid.  But—­ let’s feed these skates the spur!  The town’s boiling!”

Indeed, there was a dull roar behind them.

“No danger,” chuckled Terry.  “McGuire knows perfectly well that I’ve done this.  And because he knows that, and he knows that I know it, he’ll strike in the opposite direction to Pollard’s house.  He’ll never dream that I would go right back to Pollard and sit down under the famous nose of McGuire!”

The dawn was brightening over the mountains above them, and the skyline was ragged with forest.  A free country for free men—­like the old Black Jack and the new.  A short life, perhaps, but a full one.

The coming of the day showed Denver’s face weary and drawn.  Those moments in the bank, surrounded by danger, had been nerve-racking even to his experience.  But to him it was a business, and to Terry it was a game.  He felt a qualm of pity for Lewison—­but, after all, the man was a wolf, selfish, accumulating money to no purpose, useless to the world.  He shrugged the thought of Lewison away.

It was close to sunrise when they reached the house, and having put up the horses, staggered in and called to Johnny to bring them coffee; he was already rattling at the kitchen stove.  Then, with a shout, they brought Pollard himself stumbling down from the balcony rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.  They threw the money down before him.

He was stupefied, and then his big lion’s voice went booming with the call for his men.  Terry did not wait; he stretched himself with a great yawn and made for his bed, and passed Phil Marvin and the others hurrying downstairs to answer the summons.  Kate Pollard came also.  She paused as he went by her and he saw her eyes go down to his dusty boots, with the leather polished where the stirrup had chafed, then flashed back to his face.

“You, Terry!” she whispered.

But he went by her with a wave of the hand.

The girl went on down to the big room.  They were gathered already, a bright-eyed, hungry-faced crew of men.  Gold was piled across the table in front of them.  Slim Dugan had been ordered to go to the highest window of the house and keep watch for the coming of the expected posse.  In the meantime the others counted the money, ranging it in bright little stacks; and Denver told the tale.

He took a little more credit to himself than was his due.  But it was his part to pay a tribute to Terry.  For was it not he who had brought the son of Black Jack among them?

“And of all the close squeezes I ever been in,” concluded Denver, “that was the closest.  And of all the nervy, cold-eyed guys I ever see, Black Jack’s kid takes the cake.  Never a quiver all the time.  And when he whispered, them two guys at the table jumped.  He meant business, and they knew it.”

The girl listened.  Her eye alone was not upon the money, but fixed far off, at thin distance.

“Thirty-five thousand gold,” announced Pollard, with a break of excitement in his voice, “and seventeen thousand three hundred and eighty-two in paper.  Boys, the richest haul we ever made!  And the coolest deal all the way through.  Which I say, Denver and Terry—­Terry particular—­gets extra shares for what they done!”

And there was a chorus of hearty approval.  The voice of Denver cut it short.

“Terry don’t want none.  No, boys, knock me dead if he does.  Can you beat it?  ‘I did it to keep my word,’ he says, ’with the sheriff.  You can have my share, Denver.’

“And he sticks on it.  It’s a game with him, boys.  He plays at it like a big kid!”

In the hush of astonishment, the eyes of Kate misted.  Something in that last speech had stung her cruelly.  Something had to be done, and quickly, to save young Terry Hollis.  But what power could influence him?

It was that thought which brought her to the hope for a solution.  A very vague and faraway hope to which she clung and which unravelled slowly in her imagination.  Before she left the kitchen, her plan was made, and immediately after breakfast, she went to her room and dressed for a long journey.

“I’m going over the hills to visit the Stockton girls,” she told her father.  “Be gone a few days.”

His mind was too filled with hope for the future to understand her.  He nodded idly, and she was gone.

She roped the toughest mustang of her “string” in the corral, and ten minutes later she was jogging down the trail.  Halfway down a confused group of riders—­some dozen in all—­swarmed up out of the lower trail.  Sheriff McGuire rode out on a sweating horse that told of fierce and long riding and stopped her.

His salutation was brief; he plunged into the heart of his questions.  Had she noticed anything unusual this morning?  Which of the men had been absent from the house last night?  Particularly, who went out with Black Jack’s kid?

“Nobody left the house,” she said steadily.  “Not a soul.”

And she kept a blank eye on the sheriff while he bit his lip and studied her.

“Kate,” he said at length, “I don’t blame you for not talking.  I don’t suppose I would in your place.  But your dad has about reached the end of the rope with us.  If you got any influence, try to change him, because if he don’t do it by his own will, he’s going to be changed by force!”

And he rode on up the trail, followed by the silent string of riders on their grunting, tired horses.  She gave them only a careless glance.  Joe Pollard had baffled officers of the law before, and he would do it again.  That was not her great concern on this day.

Down the trail she sent her mustang again, and broke him out into a stiff gallop on the level ground below.  She headed straight through the town, and found a large group collected in and around the bank building.  They turned and looked after her, but no one spoke a greeting.  Plainly the sheriff’s suspicions were shared by others.

She shook that shadow out of her head and devoted her entire attention to the trail which roughened and grew narrow on the other side of the town.  Far away across the mountains lay her goal—­the Cornish ranch.